Mother's Day

My sisters and I lost our mother last year. This is the first Mothers Day without her. I won't spend a lot of time talking about things, but I will mention this. During the last few years of her life, she enjoyed much of the benefits of cord cutting. 

She was a fan of technology up to a point. She loved her iPhone but never used it to its fullest extent. However, she used it to do things she had never done before: texting, video chats, Web surfing, and the like. She was fascinated by that, and enjoyed being able to stay in touch with family with greater ease.

She enjoyed her M*A*S*H videos, her Murder She Wrote videos, and the like. I ripped out all of her DVDs, both movies and TV shows, to place on a Plex server for her to watch. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'll explain it like I did to her. Launch this app called Plex, and there are all your movies and TV shows you can watch on any of your TVs, any time you want. She loved that.

Watching her excitement about the things she could do with technology made me understand that I may have inherited that fascination and interest from her. In more ways than the obvious, she made me who I am today.

It's Mothers Day. Enjoy it with your mother if you're able. If not, we can all miss our respective mothers together.

My device of choice

I've said time and again that I think anyone would do well choosing either Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, or Chromecast With Google TV as a streaming device of choice.

My personal choice is Roku, but I am not exclusive to Roku. I have Apple TV devices connected to TVs, and I have Chromecast With Google TV on multiple TVs, but I have Roku on every TV.

Why do I have multiple devices? Well, as streaming gains in popularity, more and more of the problems with mainstream TV come to streaming. As I write this, Roku and Google are having a pissing contest about YouTube TV, and probably about YouTube also. At the moment, YouTube TV isn't available on Roku, unless you already have it installed. 

This is much like the arguments with cable carriers and certain stations that happens from time to time. You know the deal, "Call your cable company and tell them to keep WPXLY-TV available" kind of thing. Now it's Roku and Google sending emails asking you to bombard the other one with emails and support posts threatening to take your ball and go home.

I'll rant more about that whole thing later. Right now, the point is just because a service or app you want is available on a device, there's no guarantee it will always be available. Amazon Fire TV has lost apps from time to time. Apple TV has too. And now Roku. All devices will be subject to this.

So, what's a person to do? Well, I have more than one device. I have two: Roku and Apple TV. 

No, wait, I have three: Roku, Apple TV, and Google Chromecast. 

Okay, I have four: Roku, Apple TV, Google Chromecast, and Amazon Fire TV. Yes, the Fire TV device is not connected, but it's available if I need it.

My device of choice? Pick any two.

Sure, start with a single device, if you're just starting your Streaming Life. But do pick up a secondary device some time. They're relatively cheap, and different family members may prefer different interfaces.

Whatever you pick, have a backup. Just in case.

The perfect streaming device is ...

Image: NBC/Universal

I've spent over a decade streaming, using a variety of devices over the years. I've tried a variety of devices over that time, and I've spent a lot of money trying to get it right.

I've not tried every device on the market, but I have tried the major players: Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Google Chromecast, TiVo, and others.

So, what's the perfect streaming device? Well, that's not an easy question to answer. You have to consider several things. 

• Does the device carry the apps you want?
• Is the device easy to use?
• Is the device reliable?

So, with those things in mind, what's the answer? That's easy. The perfect streaming device is ... non-existent.

Oh, sure, some devices come close, but no device carries all the apps. There are some that aren't available on Roku, but are available on Apple TV, for instance. There are some that are only on Roku. Some are on Fire TV, but have a different, inferior version on another platform. 

Sure, there is a difference between a device carrying all the apps and a device carrying the apps you want. For example, if all you want is Netflix, Hulu, and Prime Video, then any of the Big Four -- Roku, Amazon Fire, Apple TV, Chromecast -- will do that. 

But what about apps you don't know about? There may be some perfect app, a niche app, that has something that is just up your alley. But that app may only be available on Roku. If that's the case, Roku is your perfect device. But what if another device has a different app that is another service that is for you? Then it's that device. And what if these other two perfect apps are on two different devices? 

What if all the Big Four carry all the apps you truly do want? Well, is it easy to use? One thing I live about Roku and Apple TV is that the menu layout is consistent. Amazon Fire TV devices move things around on the menu, though. If you use an app, it moves it to the front of the menu so you can easily use it again. That's fine, if you like that, but if you prefer everything in its place all the time, that will drive you crazy.

And what abut reliability? The Big Four are reliable devices. Well, sort of. Apple TV is certainly a great device. And the upper tier Roku devices are fantastic, but I'm not that big of a fan of the lower, entry-level devices. And I've previously mentioned that I consider Amazon Fire TV to be underpowered devices, almost to the point of planned obsolescence. Chromecast has been good, but as they are the latest entry into the mix (of the Big Four) they're still working out the bugs. But I do like them.

If you had asked me five years ago, I would have said Apple TV was the closest to perfect device. More recently, I would have said Roku. Next year, who knows?

I have multiple devices hooked up to my TVs. I have Chromecast on some, Apple TV on some, but I have Roku on them all. So, no matter what I say, my actions say that I'm in Camp Roku.

I'm okay with that. But if Apple TV, or Fire TV, or Chromecast is your device of choice, you've made a good choice.

Replacing TiVo

I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for TiVo. It was the first streaming device I had, even if I didn't know it.

Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, now that I think about it. I'm trying to recall just when I upgraded my first TiVo. It may have been after I bought the first Apple TV and Roku. It was around that time, though. And, that first TiVo may have had streaming capabilities, even if I didn't use them.

Regardless, I mentioned before that using TiVo helped me make the switch to streaming. I really liked TiVo, but after I stopped using it, TiVo faded from my thoughts, even though the devices were still connected.

I went without local channels often, because I didn't have cable and I didn't have an antenna. However, I eventually did put up an antenna and used it with TiVo. But, as I said, I rarely used TiVo.

Still, I wanted to have the capability of watching local channels, even if I didn't watch them. When my mother had a problem getting warranty replacement for a defective TiVo device, she decided she was done with them and canceled her service. I had lifetime service, but decided the old TiVo company I had known and loved was officially no more. I took my devices down.

So, what did I replace it with? I narrowed down the list to two separate devices and services: AirTV and Tablo TV.

They both have their good points and bad points. They both cost around the same for their top end devices. and the pricing for the services are comparable, though not identical.

AirTV is from Dish. They own Sling TV. I'll talk more about Sling TV in the future. For now, it's important to know that the Sling TV app is how you watch AirTV. You hook the antenna lead up to the AirTV and the content will show up in the Sling TV app. And, you don't have to have a Sling TV subscription. You can watch the free content, and the over the air (OTA) programming will appear in the menu and on the program guide.

Oh, and AirTV offers a free two-week program guide. So that's great. The only cost is the antenna and installation, plus the AirTV device. I went with the $200 one that has a large storage drive for DVR.

Tablo TV is similar in that you buy the equipment -- I got the one that's around $200 -- and hook the antenna to it. You add the Tablo TV app and use that to watch TV. The program guide is one day for the free one, or you can pay $5/month for a two-week guide. That's more than AirTV, but less than TiVo.

I like the Tablo TV interface better than AirTV's, but that simply means I'm not that big of a fan of Sling TV's interface, because, as I said, that's what it uses.

So, which do I use? That's easy. I use both.

At one house -- the one I co-own with two sisters -- I put up AirTV. It works great.

At the other house, I put up Tablo TV, and paid for a lifetime subscription.

They're both great. They work a lot alike, but have some small differences.

Which one would I recommend? Well, I'd say check for special deals on service bundles. If you already use Sling TV, go with AirTV. If you don't, go with whichever you can get a better deal on. You'll be happy whichever way you go.

Cold on Fire

As I continued my journey through this Streaming Life, I used a variety of streaming devices over the years. Roku, Apple TV, TiVo, Simple TV, Chromecast, Mi Box, and more. The most notable one I haven't listed is Amazon's Fire TV devices. This doesn't mean I haven't used them. I have. I've purchased several Firesticks. Today, I still have one. In a box somewhere. The others I gave away.

Why did I stop using them? Simple. I don't like the Fire TV devices. They're all much slower than the other devices I've tried.

Well, that's not really true. The Simple TV device was quite slow. TiVo devices, at least the older devices I used, were kinda slow. And the first Roku HDMI Streaming Stick (model 3500) was slow and sluggish.

It was particularly because the Firestick and the Roku Stick 3500 were so slow and sluggish that I didn't think much of sticks overall. I just figured they were underpowered devices. When I got a Roku Stick 3600, it was a little better, but not much. That sealed it for me: sticks were trash.

I eventually did purchase a Roku Streaming Stick+ model 3810, and was very happy with its performance. So that let me know that it wasn't that sticks were poor devices, it was that certain sticks were poor devices. The early ones were underpowered, both Roku and Amazon. My experience with Amazon hasn't changed, though. 

Maybe it's because I always had top of the line Roku devices that I was comparing against. Apple TV held up well, of course, because Apple makes really good, and expensive, devices. Amazon's Firesticks were cheap, both in price and in quality, at least in my experience.

You may have a Firestick and love it. And if you do, great. You're happy with your purchase. But my experience is not that. I've always found the Fire TV devices to be underpowered and underperforming compared to my Roku devices.

The other thing I don't like about Firesticks isn't really Amazon's fault. Well, maybe it is, but I blame them less for it. Firesticks are the device of choice for pirate TV services. They're easy to crack in order to load software that will allow illegal streaming services to operate. I'm highly opposed to pirating content, and the fact that the devices are so often and so easily used for that purpose leaves a bad taste. If you're not sure what I'm talking about with illegal streaming services, I'll talk about them one day. Right now, it's just another reason, rightly or wrongly, for me to no like Firesticks.

Maybe I'll buy another Firestick one day and try again. But that day isn't today.